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“What sort of preliminary missions?” Kurakin asked carefully, still stunned by how swiftly the other man was moving.

“Mostly close reconnaissance of selected sites,” Gryzlov told him. “Although they will also need to set up a number of clandestine bases to house larger strike forces.”

Slowly, Kurakin recovered his balance. What the president was asking of him was not impossible. The Spetsnaz and GRU veterans he’d recruited for RKU were old hands at covert reconnaissance inside enemy territory.

“Well?” Gryzlov demanded. “Will your men be ready to move on my orders?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” he said confidently. His mind was already busy working out different schemes for smuggling the necessary men, weapons, and gear into Poland. Or the Baltic states. Or Romania. It should not be too difficult. Drawing up such plans was a routine part of any experienced Spetsnaz commander’s preparation for wartime operations. “I can have teams in place around the Iron Wolf base at Powidz or near important political and military targets in Warsaw, Bucharest, and other cities in a matter of days.”

“Poland? Romania? No, you misunderstand me, Kurakin,” Gryzlov said with a dismissive laugh. “I haven’t created your force to fight another meaningless border skirmish with the Poles and their allies. Those preliminary actions are over. They’ve served their purpose in finding and fixing the primary enemy threat to us, Martindale’s Iron Wolf mercenaries. Now, with them tied down in the wrong place, we move on to the main event.”

“The main event?” Kurakin asked cautiously.

Operatisya Shakh i Mat, Operation Checkmate,” Gryzlov told him. His eyes were ice-cold, full of cruel anticipation. “Those who’ve plagued Russia for so long — destroying our air and missile bases, suborning our allies, killing our brave airmen and soldiers—they are about to learn what suffering truly means.”

Six

REGAN AIR FREIGHT AIRFIELD EXPANSION PROJECT, NEAR MOAB, UTAH
SEVERAL DAYS LATER

Pale red dust swirled high in the air, drifting away from where bulldozers, front loaders, graders, dump trucks, and road rollers rumbled back and forth along a strip of high desert south of Moab. Cranes swayed elsewhere, carefully hoisting sections of prefabricated steel buildings into place. Tall sandstone cliffs rose scarcely more than a mile away to the east and west.

Frank Jameson pushed back his hard hat and rubbed distractedly at his sweaty forehead. His construction company had bid for this rush job and stood to profit handsomely when it was finished. But he still couldn’t figure out what on earth Regan Air Freight, a privately owned air cargo company, really had to gain here.

Moab’s old Grand County Airport had been abandoned since 1965, the victim of a failed bid to entice the U.S. Air Force into building a base at a newer location, Canyonlands Field. In all the long years since, its sole paved runway had sat idle, slowly deteriorating in southeastern Utah’s arid climate. Mule deer, coyotes, and jackrabbits roamed unchecked, joined only occasionally by drag racers who used the mile-long strip for their meets.

Now all that had changed. Regan Air had swooped in out of the blue and bought the land for a pittance. They were paying Jameson and his workers a princely sum to repair and extend the old runway and erect new buildings on the site.

Although Frank Jameson wasn’t one to kick about a contract that would put his company in the black for the next year, he still couldn’t help being curious about what Regan Air had in mind. With the uranium mines closed, the Moab-area economy relied heavily on tourism. And mountain bikers, base jumpers, and hikers didn’t exactly need much in the way of air freight services.

He said as much to the shorter, well-dressed man standing at his shoulder.

“Access to the next energy boom, Mr. Jameson,” Willem Daeniker replied with a slight smile. As a representative of Regan Air’s new owners, the Swiss banker had flown in earlier that day to inspect their progress. “Our company believes there will be substantial profits to be made flying in equipment and supplies for new power projects in this region.”

Jameson raised an eyebrow. “Energy boom?” He shook his head. “Well, I sure hope your folks know what they’re doing, because the geology’s all wrong. At least right around here. The nearest oil and gas deposits are a hundred miles north… and Salt Lake City’s got better road connections to ’em.”

“Oh, I am not speaking primarily of oil and natural gas,” Daeniker said, still smiling. “The boom I refer to is mostly in renewable energy, in wind and solar power. With the tax incentives and other subsidies offered by your federal government, we believe many companies will be interested in building such plants in the surrounding area — especially with a new air freight hub able to handle their cargos.”

“That sort of depends on who wins the election, doesn’t it?” Jameson carefully pointed out. “Last time I checked, J. D. Farrell wasn’t a big fan of all this ‘green energy’ stuff.”

Daeniker shrugged. “There are always risks in any significant investment, Mr. Jameson. Evidently my employers believe your President Barbeau will be reelected.” He glanced up at the taller man with narrowed eyes. “But that is of no real importance to you as far as this construction project is concerned, is it?”

“No, sir,” Jameson said quickly. Arguing politics with clients was never good business. Regan Air’s new owners might be wasting its money here, but that was their lookout. Besides, if they were right about new wind and solar plants going up around Moab and the rest of southeastern Utah, his company had a good shot at landing a lot of that work. “My guys will have that runway extension finished and those buildings up within ten days.”

“Excellent,” Daeniker said. “My employers will be pleased.”

DRAWSKO POMORSKIE MILITARY TRAINING AREA, NORTHWEST POLAND
A FEW WEEKS LATER

The muffled crump of artillery and heavy mortar fire echoed across a wide, shallow valley flanked by beech woods on all sides. Its grassy slopes were torn by crisscrossing tank tracks and smoldering shell craters. Gray and black smoke stained the near horizon.

Secure in a bunker built into the hillside, Polish president Piotr Wilk focused his binoculars through an observation port. Senior military officers and government officials from half a dozen different Eastern and central European countries did the same at other firing slits and ports.

Suddenly two light gray shapes screamed down the valley at low altitude. Small bombs tumbled from under their delta wings, slamming into the ground and exploding in brief, blinding flashes. Dozens of decoy flares streamed behind the Hungarian JAS 39 Gripens as they rolled away and climbed, turning with incredible agility.

Enviously, Wilk followed them though his binoculars. Good planes. Good pilots, he thought. Like the American-built F-16s he’d loved flying during his days as a veteran pilot and charismatic air-force commander, those Swedish-designed single-engine fighters were superb air superiority and ground-attack aircraft. Wiry, middling tall, and not quite fifty, Poland’s president still occasionally found himself longing for the days when he could strap into a cockpit and go head-to-head against his nation’s enemies. Unfortunately, he reminded himself, service to Poland and the cause of freedom now demanded that he engage in the subtler and sometimes darker arts of politics, strategy, and diplomacy.

Like now, Piotr, he reminded himself with a wry grin.

Wilk lowered his binoculars and turned to his Hungarian counterpart, Prime Minister Tibor Lukács. The other man, notoriously touchy and xenophobic, had been one of the leaders most reluctant to join the fledgling Alliance of Free Nations. Only the overwhelming evidence of Gennadiy Gryzlov’s aggressive plans had persuaded him to sign on. All of which made buttering him up whenever possible a priority. “Please pass my compliments to your pilots and their commanders, Tibor. That was an excellent attack run.”